Day 23: Words Refined Seven Times
Read: Psalm 12:1–8
The words of the LORD are pure words, like silver refined in a furnace on the ground, purified seven times.
— Psalm 12:6 (ESV)
Reflect
Psalm 12 is about words. Read verses 2 through 4 and you hear a world full of bad speech. "Everyone utters lies to his neighbor." People speak "with flattering lips and a double heart." They boast, "With our tongue we will prevail, our lips are with us; who is master over us?"
Sound familiar? We live surrounded by words. Many of them are flattering, many are manipulative, and many are simply empty.
Then verse 6 sets something against all that noise. "The words of the LORD are pure words."
The word translated "refined" is tsaruf. It is the goldsmith's word, the word for smelting metal in a furnace until the impurities burn away. And the form of it means "having been refined." The process is already finished. God's words are not still being tested to see if they hold up. They have been through the fire and come out clean.
Then the psalm adds: "purified seven times." Seven, in Scripture, often signals completeness. These words have been refined all the way. There is no dross left in them. No flattery. No hidden agenda. No double heart.
God's words have been through the furnace and come out clean.
When everyone else's words leave you unsure what to believe, here are words you can put your full weight on.
Across Scripture
"The word of the LORD proves true" (Psalm 18:30), and "every word of God proves true" (Proverbs 30:5; see also Psalm 119:140). God promises to refine his people "as one refines silver" (Zechariah 13:9). Peter says our faith, too, is refined, "more precious than gold that perishes though it is tested by fire" (1 Peter 1:7).
Sit With It
When the people around you are speaking flattery or panic, whose words do you trust? Choose the refined ones first.
Pray
Let your words be the ones that settle in me.
Scripture quotations are from the ESV® Bible (The Holy Bible, English Standard Version®), © 2001 by Crossway, a publishing ministry of Good News Publishers. Used by permission. All rights reserved.